Artist statement: The Inner Artist 1.

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I believe we have tremendous growth occurring through our activities in the studio as artists. It’s not the intention in this last chapter to go into these particular transformative possibilities, as each of us has experiences in our studios, which form our own individual transformation as artists and form our own transformation with the work. This can happen in the way of making spectacular jumps in perception, simply through being alert to the accident occurring in your work.

Art Review on John Dahlsen’s work in New York

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Dahlsen, by comparison, is an optimist. To begin with, he’s already made a positive statement by clearing off the unsightly stuff that is lethal to fish and fowl. (Australia’s wildlife conservancies adore Dahlsen’s work, which was hardly his intention, but so be it.)
He wanted to impart a kind of Minimalist stability to his jumbles of deep true colours. One early assemblage of coffee lids, cooler fragments and bottle tops shared the ethereal white-on-white aura of a Robert Ryman abstraction or a William Bailey still life—only much more energetically. Piling up black combs, disposable razors and pieces of rope yielded a Louise Nevelson-like sculpture with attitude.

A Sample Artists Letter to a Foundation.

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Immediately I received the sponsorship to the value of $10,000.00. I am amazed how quickly businesses respond to sponsorship requests, when they can see a tangible return. This may give some ideas to those artists who had difficulty raising the money to participate.
Upon arriving at the Biennial, I saw that there was a mixture of professionalism and enthusiasm during the set up days and there was a fair amount of complaining by some artists, who became largely preoccupied with their complaints for the entire length of the Biennial.

Artist Statement 2 on creating websites

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I want to explain here, that expense and complication doesn’t have to be the case. I’m now going to teach you in the following explanation, how to set up what is known as a blog.
A blog is essentially a website. On the Internet these days, it is very easy to find blog sites that are free. One such site, which is owned by Google is called blogger.com.
There is also another one called WordPress.com, which is also a great blog facility. Follow these easy steps to set up your own site. Simply follow the prompts, which are as follows:

Artist Statement on Public Speaking 7

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In one sense your topic is already defined. How do you make yourself unique given that the above is true? It is important to remember that whether you’re an artist, a student, a bureaucrat in the arts industry, everyone has their own unique story to tell, this is simply because everyone is different and has had different life experiences that brings them to the point where they are in their lives.

Interviews about John Dahlsen’s Environmental Artwork 13a

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“I feel the planet is in very fragile shape. I believe it could go either way, and I felt that by joining with Big Brother I could do my bit to help,” he explains. His motives were initially misconstrued by some of his associates, who accused him of selling out to the forces of commercialism, but he claims to have won them back.
“It doesn’t take too much intelligence to see what my intentions were. Some people saw my artworks on the program and judged me because they weren’t aware of the green theme,” he says.

Interviews about John Dahlsen’s Environmental Artwork 12a

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During the latter part of 2005 and into 2006, I created a new body of environmental artwork, a series of Synthetic Polymer paintings on Belgian linen, based on the subject matter of plastic “purges” – plastic fabricator machine end waste. ??This work, considers cycles and recycling. I began re-presenting paintings of sculptures that are inherently plastic fabricator machine end waste. The use of plastic materials and their place in the evolutionary motions of recycling are important to me in constructing these images.
I see the real need for the massive social transformations that are essential, to adequately deal with such crises as the depletion of fossil fuels and climate change. I hope this work can be a timely reminder to us all of the limited supply of these petroleum based materials, which is a direct result of our current collective global mass consumerism.

Interviews about John Dahlsen’s Environmental Artwork 11c

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By presenting this art, to the public it will hopefully have people thinking about the deeper meaning of the work, in particular the environmental issues we currently face. I hope these works will act as a constant reminder to people about awareness.

I would like them to find enjoyment the work on many levels and find themselves becoming identified in various ways with each of the artworks they see. I also look forward to the possible discussion that these works may generate as a result.

I say these things as being possibilities, bearing in mind as well that comments are regularly made to me about people’s consciousness, while walking the beach, being awakened after seeing my found plastic object artworks, similarly with seeing my recycled plastic bag series, people have marveled at the creative way I am presenting the recycling theme in an aesthetic way.

Interviews about John Dahlsen’s Environmental Artwork 11b

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I’m constantly surprised to see the variations in these plastics, very much like how I am intrigued by the beach found objects I have collected over the years.

I imagine these plastic bags, which mostly have a lifespan of many years, are in fact on the verge of extinction, as it is only a matter of time before governments impose such strict deterrents to people using them that they become a thing of the past. A fitting end to what has become such a scourge to our environment on a worldwide scale.

Interviews about John Dahlsen’s Environmental Artwork 7

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John Dahlsen is an Australian found object sculptor.

After a 1983 fire destroyed most of his work, he took time to reflect on his career. While searching a beach for driftwood, he discovered what would turn out to be his most intriguing form of working material. ??Appalled at the amount of trash he encountered, he gathered over eighty bags of washed up garbage, returned to his studio and began a new chapter in his career.
Dahlsen refers to his found object sculptures as “environmental art.” These pieces display a wide range of forms, such as ten foot totems made of old sandals or pieces of plastic detritus sorted by colour and shape mounted between sheets of Plexiglas.

Interviews about John Dahlsen’s Environmental Artwork 6

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When he first started, he stumbled upon vast amounts of plastic ocean debris, collecting them in 80 jumbo garden bags full of beach-found litter. “When I first piled this collection up in my studio, I had friends drop by asking if I was okay!” he adds.
John didn’t see a giant mound of trash – rather, his unseen intelligence was at work. He saw a giant painter’s palate of colours and shapes, hues and forms: selections of yellow coloured plastics, the red, then the blues, the rope and strings, the plastic coke bottles, the thongs… the list goes on.
“As I worked with these objects, I became even more fascinated by the way they had been modified and weathered by the ocean and nature’s elements,” says Mr Dahlsen.

Interviews about John Dahlsen’s Environmental Artwork 5

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My challenge as an artist is to take these found objects, which might on first meeting have no apparent dialogue and to work with them until they speak and tell their story.”??

This work was made from found driftwood objects collected from Australian beaches. ??From the artist statement; “My creative medium changed to found art as a result of one such ‘accident’ in 1997. I was collecting driftwood, on a remote Victorian Coastline, with the intention of making furniture and stumbled upon vast amounts of plastic ocean debris. A whole new palette of colour and shape revealing itself to me immediately affected me.

Interviews about John Dahlsen’s Environmental Artwork 4

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Initially, Dahlsen was responding to an instinct to clean the beach as he wandered along, but his tidy-ups triggered more than a sense of satisfaction:

“I was amazed at how pristine the beaches looked each time I left a location, but it was also during this collecting time that I became more intrigued by what nature had done to the plastics,” he says.

Once his loot arrived home, the artist set about creating his first environmental work, a semi-abstract “landscape” made from abandoned plastic objects assembled behind perspex.

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